CHAPTER 5

PULSE MODULATION

• In continuous wave (CW) modulation, some parameter of a sinusoidal carrier

wave is varied continuously in accordance with the message signal.
• This is in direct contrast to pulse modulation. In pulse modulation; some
parameter of a pulse train is varied in accordance with the message signal.
• In pulse modulation, usually the pulses are quite short as compared to the
time between the two pulses of the same signal. Hence, pulse modulated
wave is off most of the time.
• pulse modulation offers some advantages over continuous wave modulation.
• 1. In pulse modulation, power is required to transmit pulses only rather than
being delivered continuously. Hence, transmitting power is saved.

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2. In pulse modulation, the time of pulse is very short in width and there is a
very large off time between two pulses of the same signal.
• This off time can be utilized for samples for other signal. This permits
transmission of many messages on single communication channel. This is
called multiplexing.
• We may distinguish two families of pulse modulation: analog pulse
modulation and digital pulse modulation.
• In analog pulse modulation, a periodic pulse train is used as the carrier wave,
and some characteristic feature of each pulse (e.g., amplitude, duration, or
position) is varied in a continuous manner in accordance with the
corresponding sample value of the message signal.

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 Cont..

• Thus in analog pulse modulation, information is transmitted basically in

analog form, but the transmission takes place at discrete times.

• In digital pulse modulation, on the other hand, the message signal is

represented in a form that is discrete in both time and amplitude, thereby
permitting its transmission in digital form as a sequence of coded pulses.

• The use of coded pulses for the transmission of analog information-bearing

signals represents a basic ingredient in the application of digital
communications.

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 Pulse analog modulation
• In pulse analog modulation, a periodic pulse train is used as the
carrier wave and some characteristic features of each pulse (e.g.
amplitude, duration or position ) is varied in continuous manner in
accordance with the corresponding sample value of the message
signal.

• In pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM), the amplitudes of regularly

spaced pulses are varied in proportion to the corresponding sample
values of a continuous message signal.
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 Cont..
Pulse width modulation (PWM)
•Also referred to as pulse duration modulation (PDM), where
samples of the message signal are used to vary the duration or width
of the individual pulses in the carrier.

Pulse position modulation (PPM), where the position of a pulse

relative to its unmodulated time of occurrence is varied in
accordance with the message signal.
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 The comparison between the above modulation processes is presented in a single table.

PAM PWM PPM

Amplitude is varied Width is varied Position is varied

Instantaneous transmitter power varies Instantaneous transmitter power Instantaneous transmitter power
with the amplitude of the pulses varies with the amplitude and remains constant with the width
width of the pulses of the pulses

System complexity is high

System complexity is low System complexity is low

Noise interference is high

Noise interference is low Noise interference is low

It is similar to amplitude modulation It is similar to frequency It is similar to phase modulation

modulation

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 Pulse digital modulation

•In pulse digital modulation the message signal is represented in a form that is
discrete in both time and amplitude.
Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM)
•In pulse-code modulation (PCM), a message signal is represented by a
sequence of coded pulses, which is accomplished by representing the signal in
discrete form in both time and amplitude.
•The basic operations performed in the transmitter of a PCM system are
a) Sampling
b) Quantizing
c) Encoding 8
The block diagram of PCM

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• Sampling :Process of converting analog signal into discrete signal.
• Sampling is common in all pulse modulation techniques
• the signal is sampled at regular intervals such that each sample is proportional
to amplitude of signal at that instant
• Analog signal is sampled every 𝑇𝑠 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑠, called sampling interval. 𝑓 𝑠
=1/𝑇𝑆is called sampling rate or sampling frequency.
• 𝑓 𝑠 = 2𝑓 𝑚 is Min. sampling rate called Nyquist rate..
• For 𝑓 𝑠 < 2𝑓 𝑚 sampled spectrum will overlap and cannot be recovered back.
This is called aliasing

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QUANTIZATION
• The sampled version of the message signal is then quantized,
thereby providing a new representation of the signal that is discrete
in both time and amplitude.
• sampling results in series of pulse of varying amplitude between
two limits.
• the amplitude values are infinite between two limits, we map these
to finite set of values.
• This is achieved by dividing the distance between min and max into
L zones each of height Δ
• ∆= (𝑚𝑎𝑥 − 𝑚𝑖𝑛) ⁄ 𝐿
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• Assume we have a voltage signal with amplitudes V min=-20V and
Vmax=+20V.
• We want to use L=8 quantization levels.
• Zone width = (20 - -20)/8 = 5
• The 8 zones are: -20 to -15, -15 to -10, -10 to -5, -5 to 0, 0 to +5,
+5 to +10, +10 to +15, +15 to +20
• The midpoints are: -17.5, -12.5, -7.5, -2.5, 2.5, 7.5, 12.5, 17.5

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• Assigning Codes to Zones
• Each zone is then assigned a binary code.
• The number of bits required to encode the zones, or the number of
bits per sample as it is commonly referred to, is obtained as follows:
nb = log2 L
• Given our example, nb = 3
• The 8 zone (or level) codes are therefore: 000, 001, 010, 011, 100,
101, 110, and 111
• Assigning codes to zones:
• 000 will refer to zone -20 to -15
• 001 to zone -15 to -10, etc.
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Bit rate and bandwidth requirements of PCM
• The bit rate of a PCM signal can be calculated from the number of
bits per sample × the sampling rate. Bit rate = 𝑛𝑏 × 𝑓 𝑠
• 𝐵𝑖𝑡 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 = 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 × 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 = 𝑛𝑓𝑠
• Bandwidth for PCM signal = n.fm
• Where, n – No. of bits in PCM code
• fm – signal bandwidth
• fs – Sampling rate

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 Example
• We want to digitize the human voice. What is the bit rate, assuming
8 bits per sample?

The human voice normally contains frequencies

from 0 to 4000 Hz. So the sampling rate and bit
rate are calculated as follows:

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Digital modulation techniques : Pass band data transmission

• Amplitude shift keying (ASK)On-off keying: is a form of modulation which represents

digital data as variations in the amplitude of a carrier wave. But, frequency is kept constant
amplitude has 2 levels (for bit 1 and for bit 0)

• The binary sequence is: 0010110010 17

• Frequency shift keying (FSK): In Frequency Shift Keying, the change
in frequency defines different digits. Two different frequencies near
carrier frequency represent ‘0’,''1'.

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• Phase shift keying (PSK): The phase of the carrier is discretely varied in
relation either to a reference phase or to the phase of the immediately
preceding signal element, in accordance with data being transmitted. Phase
of carrier signal is shifted to represent ‘0’, '1'

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 Base band Data Transmission (Line coding)
• Any of several line codes can be used for the electrical
representation of a binary data stream.
• Unipolar non return-to-zero (NRZ) signaling :In this line code,
symbol 1 is represented by transmitting a pulse of amplitude A for
the duration of the symbol, and symbol 0 is represented by
switching off the pulse. This line code is also referred to as on-off
signaling.
• Polar non return-to-zero (NRZ) signaling :In this line code, symbols
1 and 0 are represented by transmitting pulses of amplitudes +A and -A,
respectively.
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•Unipolar return-to-zero (RZ) signaling : In this line code, symbol 1 is
represented by a rectangular pulse of amplitude A and half-symbol width,
and symbol 0 is represented by transmitting no pulse.
 Bipolar return-to-zero (BRZ) signaling :This line code uses three
amplitude levels.
Specifically, positive and negative pulses of equal amplitude (i.e. +A and -
A) are used alternately for symbol 1, with each pulse having a half-symbol
width; no pulse is always used for symbol 0.
This line code is also called alternate mark inversion (AMI) signaling.

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Split-phase (Manchester code): In this method of signaling, symbol 1 is
represented by a positive pulse of amplitude A followed by a negative pulse of
amplitude A, with both pulses being half-symbol wide.
For symbol 0, the polarities of these two pulses are reversed.

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• Given the data stream 01101001, sketch the transmitted
sequence of pulses for each of the following line codes:
(a) Unipolar RNZ
(b) Polar NRZ
(c) Unipolar RZ
(d) Bipolar RZ
(e) Split-phase (Manchester code)

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